Principal RF Engineer

ABOUT HEAVISIDE INDUSTRIES

Heaviside Industries builds multi-domain autonomous precision munitions for U.S. and allied special operations and conventional forces. While modern warfare has rapidly evolved with the proliferation of unmanned systems, hyper-precise munitions in contested environments are the future of the battlefield. Economical precision strike capabilities are critical to U.S. and allied war efforts, enabling successful defeat of enemy military assets and infrastructure. Heaviside builds precision munitions designed to operate in GPS-denied and spectrum-jammed battlefields—where traditional systems degrade or fail—without inflated prices or sacrifice to performance. All engineering and manufacturing is conducted in-house in Heaviside's Los Angeles, CA headquarters and Oslo, Norway office. Heaviside is backed by Interlagos, Menlo Ventures, Flume Ventures, Cantos, Anorak Ventures, and Ravelin Ventures.

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Own RF architecture across the product line and carry technical accountability for every RF subsystem that ships, from concept through production and fielding
• Own the antenna and aperture layer of our products: element and array design, conformal antennas on tightly constrained airframes, radome integration, and anti-jam apertures for navigation and datalinks in GPS-denied, spectrum-contested environments
• Define system-level RF requirements — link budgets, frequency plans, gain and noise budgets, co-site interference, and spectral compliance — and flow them down to front end, digital, and mechanical teams
• Drive full-cycle hardware development: full-wave EM simulation (HFSS or CST), prototype build, chamber and range measurement, environmental qualification, and transition to rate production
• Set technical direction for the RF group — run design reviews, arbitrate cross-domain tradeoffs, and mentor RF engineers, including a dedicated RF front end engineer who owns receive and transmit chain design
• Own RF integration on the vehicle: antenna placement, cable and interconnect design, EMI/EMC, and co-existence between navigation, sensing, and communications apertures inside a small airframe
• Build out RF lab and measurement infrastructure — anechoic/near-field capability, calibration discipline, and production test methods that hold up under volume
• Support production and fielded systems: root-cause failures, drive yield, and protect design intent through supplier and component transitions

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• BS in Electrical Engineering or related field; MS or PhD preferred
• 10+ years of hands-on RF/microwave hardware design, with products that reached production and fielding
• Deep antenna design expertise strongly preferred: element and array design, conformal and electrically small antennas, radome effects, and anti-jam/CRPA apertures for GNSS or datalink applications
• System-level RF ownership: you have defined the RF architecture for a complete product — frequency plan, link budgets, partitioning between apertures, front ends, and digital — not just a single circuit within it
• Expert full-wave EM simulation in HFSS or CST, backed by measurement skills to correlate model to reality — anechoic chamber, near-field scanning, VNA, and multi-port S-parameter debugging
• Working fluency across the rest of the RF chain — amplifiers, filters, converters, and transceivers — sufficient to lead and review engineers who specialize in them
• Demonstrated technical leadership: setting direction for other RF engineers, running design reviews, and owning delivery of RF hardware against schedule
• Experience with EMI/EMC, co-site interference analysis, and qualification of RF hardware to military or aerospace environmental standards preferred
• Comfortable in a fast-moving, build-first environment where you split time between the bench, the design tools, and the team
• U.S. Person as defined by ITAR (22 CFR §120.62)

Additional Information:

Compensation bands are determined by role, level, location, and alignment with market data. Individual level and base pay is determined on a case-by-case basis and may vary based on job-related skills, education, experience, technical capabilities and internal equity. In addition to base salary, for full-time hires, you may also be eligible for long-term incentives in the form of stock options, access to medical, vision & dental coverage, and access to a 401(k) retirement plan.

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here (https://www.pmddtc.state.gov/?id=ddtc_kb_article_page&sys_id=24d528fddbfc930044f9ff621f961987).

Heaviside is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Heaviside is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, physical disability or any other legally protected status.